


Playing Nurse

by superstringtheory



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fever, Homeless Jughead Jones, Hurt/Comfort, Pneumonia, Sexual Tension, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 04:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13473429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstringtheory/pseuds/superstringtheory
Summary: Early S1- Jughead is homeless, and Betty finds out.





	Playing Nurse

It starts out with just a light tickle in his throat, an extra note of hoarseness to his voice. Maybe a little additional tiredness, a shiver he can’t seem to shake. Then it takes a turn.

 

***

 

He and Betty have been working on a big story for the Blue and Gold, and they’re close to having a real angle on it, but right now he’s too tired to come up with anything else. There’s a ratty couch shoved up against the wall in the newspaper office, probably unsold at some teacher’s garage sale and left here to die. 

 

Jughead feels kind of like he might die on it, and maybe that he won’t be the first. He’s supposed to meet Betty here to work on the article after class, but he has a study hall for last period and Betty has calc, so Jughead’s here to get a head start before she gets here. 

 

Somehow, he doesn’t think he’ll be getting up from this couch. He woke up feeling off, but waking up in your high school’s broom closet can do that to a guy, so he figured it was just the usual misery, just knocked up a notch for kicks. 

 

By third period, he couldn’t deny that he was coming down with something. To be fair, if he really thinks about it, he felt really tired yesterday, more so than usual. And that little tickle in his throat might not just be the dust. 

 

So he has a cold. He’s had colds before and he’s been fine. He’ll get through this meeting with Betty, somehow keep her from noticing that he’s feeling as bad as he is (and he is feeling bad, isn’t he, all of a sudden? Like he can’t get warm even though he’s wearing a hoodie over a flannel over an undershirt). Then she’ll go home and he’ll go pick the lock on the nurse’s office door and see if there’s any cold medicine in there he can filch. Then he’ll go back to bed in his broom closet like Harry Potter and hope to feel better in the morning. 

 

Or maybe he can go down to the nurse’s office now before she goes home for the day, and get some medicine the legitimate way and not have to resort to serpentine tricks. He checks his phone- he has just enough time to go down there, let the nurse tsk over him a little, and then come back here like nothing’s the matter. 

 

It’s a great plan. Or would be, if he didn’t stop to rest his eyes for a minute and then wake up to Betty’s wide eyes and her hand on his forehead. 

 

“Jug?” her voice is quiet, concerned. God, he doesn’t want her to know that he’s sick. They’ve only been dating for a few weeks and he’s not ready for her to see him without the veneer he carefully applies for her, that false lacquer that everything in his life is all right. 

 

“Yeah?” and that comes out hoarser than he’d have liked. Shit. He sits up all the way and coughs a little, then a little more. 

 

Betty bites her lip. “You okay? You feel pretty warm.” 

 

Jughead stretches a bit, wincing slightly at how sore his muscles are all of a sudden. 

 

His head hurts, too, and he must take too long to respond because then Betty’s sitting next to him on the couch, pulling him over so his head can rest in her lap. And he must be sick, because he lets her. 

 

After a few minutes of this, Betty shifts. 

 

“Do you want to just go home, Juggie? Go sleep it off, take some Nyquil or something?” 

 

The naiveté in this sweet line of questioning makes Jughead’s heart clench. Betty has never not had a home where there’s a mom to tuck her in when she doesn’t feel well and a cupboard stocked full of medicines for ailments of all kinds. Jughead doesn’t want to ruin that fantasy for her, but he’s shivering now, and Betty’s waiting for him to say something, and it comes out. 

 

“There’s no home.” 

 

“What do you mean, no home? Jug? What are you not telling me?” 

 

Betty’s going to make a great investigative reporter someday; already Jughead can’t say no when she turns her piercing gaze on him. He shivers again. 

 

“I mean that the drive-in shut down.” He sighs when Betty nods, urging him on, her fingers squeezing his wrist so hard that she leaves little nail marks. “... and I was staying there.” He coughs again, and it hurts his chest. 

 

“Oh, Jug…” Betty pulls him close again, kissing the crown of his head, then pulling away with a strange expression on her face. “But the drive-in shut down a while ago. Since then, you’ve been staying where…?” 

 

“Um.” Jughead uses a cough to give him some time, and then gets up, leaving Betty looking confused. 

 

“It’ll be easier if I just show you,” he says, and holds out his hand for her to follow. 

 

*** 

 

Betty’s mouth makes a little silent “oh” when she sees the broom closet with the cot inside of it. Her nails dig into Jughead’s arm again, harder than he thinks she realizes. 

 

Before he knows it, she’s collecting his stuff and putting it into his backpack, and shouldering it herself with a determined look on her face. 

 

“You’re coming home with me,” she tells him, and Jughead’s not in a position to argue. 

 

*** 

 

Once she gets him inside, he falls asleep on her bed, too quickly, and Betty can’t even marvel over how it feels to have him there, finally. His face is flushed, and she carefully removes the grey beanie, running her fingers through his hair when he stirs. 

 

He feels too warm, in her unprofessional opinion, and she sojourns to her bathroom for a thermometer and whatever medicine she can scrounge. 

 

She’s loathe to wake him, but she needs to know how high his fever is. 

 

“Jug?” Betty says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I need you to wake up for me for a minute.” 

 

They haven’t gotten to the part of the relationship where she gives him orders, not yet (although that’s something Betty would like to do, certainly, and at night when her hand creeps down below her covers she thinks about him doing whatever she asks and that imagined earnest expression on his face is always what brings her over the edge), but she’s firm. 

 

“C’mon, Jug. Just for a minute. I have to take your temperature.” 

 

He sits up slowly, pale except for fever flush, and her heart squeezes in her chest. 

 

“Open up,” she instructs him, like it’s not scaring her how pliant he is right now. He does so, and she rubs his back while they wait for the readout. 

 

Betty takes the thermometer from him when it beeps, and tries to look cheerful. 

 

“Okay, so, I’m going to need to give you some meds.” She looks through the supplies she grabbed from the bathroom medicine cabinet and deposited on the bed, looking down quickly so she doesn’t have to make eye contact. 

 

“Betty.” Jughead clears his throat. “That bad, huh?” And there’s a little glint in his eye, dialed far down from that absolutely obscenely sexual look he normally gives her, but it’s there. 

 

“Well.” Betty stalls. “We definitely need to get it down.” She tucks hair behind her ears. 

 

“You can tell me, Betty.” Jughead coughs, and Betty rubs his back again until it stops. 

 

“103.2,” she says finally, biting her lip, and Jughead just leans back against her pillows. 

 

“Always did run hot,” he says, but illness takes most of the humor out of his voice. 

 

Betty busies herself with getting him a glass of water and giving him Tylenol and a little cup of Nyquil. 

 

“Sorry we don’t have anything better,” she apologizes as Jughead swallows the pills, then raises the little shot glass of medicine to her sardonically. 

 

“Please, Betty,” he says. “This is a lot more than I ever…” he breaks off to cough into his elbow, and doesn’t finish the sentence. 

 

Betty shifts from where she’s sitting on her vanity stool, and Jughead beckons her with a weak gesture. 

 

“C’mere,” he says, and then she’s climbing into bed with him, kicking off her slippers and their legs are touching under the covers and she abruptly realizes that he’s still wearing his normal school clothes- jeans and a flannel and suspenders. 

 

“Juggie,” she says gently. “You can’t sleep like this.” 

 

Betty peels back the comforter to reveal his jeans and he flushes an even deeper pink. 

 

“It’s okay,” she says quickly. “I have some old sweatpants I can give you. And a t-shirt?” 

 

He nods tiredly and starts working on taking off his jeans. 

 

It’s not exactly what she imagined when she thought about the first time he’d be undressing in front of her. 

 

*** 

 

Betty takes her time locating the clothes for Jughead, digging around in her dresser with her back to him. 

 

“Okay,” Jughead says quietly, and she bustles over with the sweats and t-shirt. He’s still wearing his usual wife-beater, and she tsks. 

 

“It’s okay, Jug,” she repeats, “I won’t take advantage of you when you’re sick.” She grins, a lot wider than she feels like, and he pulls the white tank over his head. 

 

He has a little bit of a tummy that she’s felt when they’re making out, and he seems shy about her seeing it. Betty couldn’t care less. For now, all she wants is to help him feel better, to get him cooled down and comfortable, and clean clothes are part of that. 

 

“Okay,” Betty says again. “That’s better.” Her heart squeezes tightly again as she sees how exhausted he looks, just from pulling on the sweats, and she quickly goes around to the other side of the bed and crawls in before she can rethink it. She reaches over and twists the knob on her bedside lamp and the room goes dim. 

 

She can hear Jughead breathing in the semi-darkness, and he sounds congested and miserable. 

 

They’re not touching under the covers, not at first, so Betty nudges his leg with her knee and says, “Relax, Jug. Just slide down and close your eyes and work on getting better. Okay?” He does, but she can tell that his breathing still sounds funny, even beyond whatever’s going on with his lungs. 

 

“It’s okay,” she says for the millionth time. “I have a lock on the inside of my bedroom door. I wouldn’t have suggested this if I couldn’t make it work, all right? Now I need you to go to sleep so you can get well.” At that, she leans over and presses a kiss to his too-hot neck, and Jughead murmurs, then coughs lightly into the pillow. 

 

“Not exactly how I wanted to get you in bed,” he mutters, and she laughs, surprised. 

 

“Don’t worry, Jones, you’ll have plenty more opportunity. Now sleep.” 

 

And he does, and so does Betty, after she’s carefully listened to his breaths even out. 

 

*** 

 

She wakes suddenly in the middle of the night, and Jughead’s pressed up against her like a furnace, and she can tell that his fever’s up. She thinks wildly about lukewarm baths but even at the best of times, she couldn’t explain to her parents why she was running a bath at 2 am. 

 

Betty slips carefully from under the covers and wets some washcloths with cool water. Jughead’s dazed when she wakes him, and only really reacts when she places the compresses. 

 

“Shh,” she shushes him. “My parents. Shhh.” 

But it’s not just her parents- ensconced in their master bedroom far down the hall, Polly’s empty room and a bathroom between them and Betty’s room- it’s that she doesn’t trust herself to say more. She can’t lose it, not now, not when she is the only person Jughead trusts enough to know the truth of his living situation. 

 

So she holds his hand and changes out the compresses when they get warm, and after a while, things don’t seem quite so dire. Betty extracts her fingers from Jughead’s and tiptoes to the bathroom to get him a glass of water, which she makes him drink at least half of before she’ll let him go back to sleep. 

 

“Thanks,” he mutters, heavy-lidded, and it might seem like a throwaway sentiment, spat out like a dry Communion wafer, but she knows it’s worth more than that. 

 

“Thanks for trusting me,” she murmurs , and runs her fingers through his hair again after she climbs back into the bed next to him. Jughead moves over until his cheek is pressed up against her leg, hugging her to him, and even though she’s not going to be able to sleep like this, she lets him. 

 

*** 

 

The next morning, Betty doesn’t even need to do much acting for her mother to believe her story. 

 

Alice Cooper looks her up and down with an eyebrow raised after Betty shuffles into the dining room, pretending to squint and affecting a pained expression. 

 

“Mom? I have a migraine. I don’t think I can go to school today.” 

 

Alice considers. “Probably up too late talking to your two-bit trash boyfriend. Have to wait until after nine for the calling rates to be cheaper?” 

 

Betty can’t even respond to that. “I’m going back to bed. Call me in sick? Thanks.” She turns without waiting for Alice to reply.

 

“Okay,” her mother calls after her. “But you had better be in that bed all day, young lady.” 

 

Betty nods without turning around, and as soon as she’s out of view, sprints quickly back upstairs and locks her bedroom door behind her. She presses a long kiss to Jughead’s forehead and frowns when he still feels way too hot. He rolls over at her touch but doesn’t wake up. 

 

She gets dressed and ready for the day while Jughead continues to sleep congestedly, keeping her eye on him and her ears perked for the sound of her mother’s car leaving, carrying both of her parents mercifully to work. 

 

Google tells her that the free clinic the next town over will be open in a half hour, so she decides to take advantage of her father’s station wagon in the garage and see if she can get Jughead the medicine he obviously needs. She’s no doctor, but she knows enough to know that she’s ill-equipped to handle how ill her boyfriend is, and he’s certainly not going to get any better sleeping on a cot in a closet. Jughead needs actual medical attention, and she can at least provide transportation. 

 

He’s not happy about going, but he also seems pretty out of it, so Betty doesn’t have a lot of trouble about bundling him into the car, where he falls asleep almost immediately. Betty finds this telling- the Jughead she’s used to is always eager to spend time with her, to converse about literature and old movies and ideas for the newspaper. To hold her hand and watch her drive. 

 

Jughead completely silent except for his whistling breath, that’s something new. 

 

*** 

 

In the waiting room, Jughead rests his head on her shoulder and dozes, and Betty does her best to comfort him, but he’s still coughing too much and there’s that weird sound she can catch sometimes when he breathes and it scares her more than she can say. 

 

Once Jughead’s name is called by a nurse who looks like she’s seen a lot of shit and taken none of it, Betty has to nudge him to get him to rouse. 

 

“I’m coming in with him,” she tells the nurse instead of asking, and the nurse just raises a brow slightly but says nothing. 

 

The nurse (her nametag says “TANYA”) takes Jughead’s temperature and tsks before writing it down. “One-oh-three. You’ve got yourself a fever, mister.” 

 

Betty squeezes his hand, and Tanya eyes Jughead narrowly. “You been running that kind of temperature long?” 

 

Jughead starts to say no, but Betty interjects. 

 

“At least since Thursday,” she says, and Jughead makes like he wants to say something, but he reconsiders at Betty’s sharp glance. 

 

“Is that true?” Tanya asks, now fitting a blood pressure cuff over Jughead’s arm. He shrugs after she finishes taking down the numbers, and she tsks at him again. 

 

She asks him about coughing, wheezing, any other symptoms, and Jughead answers truthfully from what Betty can tell. His voice is low and he sounds exhausted despite having been asleep for at least fourteen of the last fifteen hours, from Betty’s estimate. 

 

Eventually, Tanya lets them know that the doctor will be in soon, and tells Jughead to “feel better soon, honey.” 

 

***

 

Walking out of the clinic, Betty can’t hold it back anymore, and she whirls on her heel to catch Jughead’s elbow. 

 

“Pneumonia. Pneumonia?!” She stops in front of him on the sidewalk, effectively blocking his progress. “Jughead. I--” she’s about to say something hotly, something about how he needs to take better care of himself because he’s  _ important _ , goddammit, but then he’s pulling her to him in an embrace and the words die on her lips. 

 

They hold each other for a long moment, and then Jughead angles his body away from her to cough into his elbow, and Betty remembers why they’re there again. 

 

“C’mon, Jug, let’s get your prescription and then get you back in bed.” 

 

She flushes when he raises an eyebrow at her blasé phrasing, and Betty’s just glad that he’s with it enough to find innuendo in her innocence. 

 

“C’mon,” she repeats, and tugs him towards the car. 

 

***

 

Betty eases the station wagon carefully back into its space in the garage, then closes the garage door after them. 

 

Jughead still looks wrung out and exhausted, and she can feel a sickly warmth emanating from him when she cups his cheek in her hand. 

 

“Let’s get you inside.” 

 

Betty runs down to the basement to do a load of laundry after Jughead’s climbed back into her bed, and rather than making her embarrassed, washing his underwear and socks makes her feel pangs of sadness. It’s oddly domestic, something she wouldn’t expect to be doing so early in a relationship, but it’s also something she can’t not do. 

 

After the washer starts, Betty runs back up two flights of stairs to her room. Jughead’s already asleep again, and he looks so sweet and calm that she can’t bear to wake him, even though she knows he needs to take his antibiotics. 

 

Instead, she figures a little nap won’t hurt anything, and so she locks her door and crawls underneath his arm to catch a little lost sleep herself. 

 

***

 

She wakes up because he’s shivering next to her, so hard that his teeth are chattering. She presses her hands to his face and he’s burning up. Her nails dig into her palms and she forces herself to take a few calming breaths, sliding out of bed and going quickly to her bathroom, rolling up the sleeves of her sweater. 

 

Betty starts to run a lukewarm bath, then goes back to the bedroom to get Jughead. He’s awake but seems out of it, like he’s watching everything from underwater. Still, he’s compliant, swallowing pills with a wince and then letting her lead him to the bathroom and help him undress. 

 

“S’cold,” he mutters after he’s in the tub, and even though he’s naked, there’s nothing sexual about this. All Betty wants is to help him feel better, no matter what it takes. 

 

“It’s not cold, Juggie,” she tells him. “That’s the fever. This will help you feel better, okay?” 

 

He nods even though he looks like he doesn’t quite believe her, and her heart clenches yet again. 

 

Betty helps him rinse his hair, cupping water in her hands and then massaging his scalp. She feels him relax, little by little, until he’s not shivering anymore. She reaches over to drain the tub and Jughead catches her by the wrist. 

 

“Thank you, Betty.” His eyes are clearer and she lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She kisses him, because he’s right there and she can’t help it, and he kisses back, warmth and soft lips and Jesus, he’s still naked. 

 

Betty blushes as she pulls away from the kiss. 

 

“Do you want… a towel or something?” she asks, because much as she wants him to be naked with her, now is not the time. 

 

“Here,” she says, not waiting for him to answer. She grabs a fluffy towel from the rack and hands it to him, quickly turning around. 

  
“I’ll be in the bedroom,” she tells him, and exits before she can say or do anything else. 

 

A few minutes later, Jughead emerges from the bathroom, hair damp and tousled, and looking healthier than he has since she found him asleep on the couch in the newspaper office. 

 

He’s also wearing her fuzzy pink bathrobe, and she laughs before she can help herself.  

 

“What?” he says, and then breaks into a long coughing fit, and she’s reminded that he’s still sick. 

 

Betty bites her lip. “Nothing. Here, let me go and get you something to eat while you get dressed.” She points to another pair of sweats and an oversized t-shirt laid out on her vanity. 

 

“I’ll be right back,” she tells him. 

 

***

 

When she returns from switching the laundry and getting some food together, Jughead is back under the covers with his laptop on top of the blankets. 

 

“Working on your novel, Hemingway?” Betty teases, but he shakes his head, clearing his throat a little. 

 

“Finding a movie for us to watch,” he says. “How do you feel about Cary Grant?” 

 

***

 

_ An Affair to Remember  _ is sweeping and romantic and at the end, Betty finds herself with wet cheeks. 

 

“You getting soft on me, Cooper?” Jughead asks gently, and tilts her chin up with a finger. 

 

“No,” she says, swiping at her eyes. 

 

Jughead kisses her gently, and she kisses him back, glad to be there with him, glad that he’s starting to feel better. She took his temperature during the entr’act and was pleased to find that he was sitting at a much more reasonable 100.7. 

 

Although Betty would love to keep kissing and maybe even a little more, she’s well aware that while Jughead’s doing a lot better, he’s far from well. She can still hear that little crackle when he breathes, and he’s still running a fever, albeit a much less concerning one. And there are other issues to address, too. 

 

“Jug,” Betty starts, sitting up and straightening her ponytail. “We need to talk about some stuff.” 

 

Jughead sighs, and coughs, but makes a gesture for her to continue. 

 

“We need to get something more permanent figured out for you, living situation-wise. I know you think you were doing okay, but what would’ve happened if you hadn’t told me you were sick?” 

 

Jughead sighs again, and it’s hard to not just pull him into her arms and hold him, but this conversation is more important. 

 

Betty keeps her voice kind but firm. “I think you need to talk to your dad, Jug. Hiding out in my bedroom for a weekend because you’re deathly ill is one thing, but it’s not a long-term solution.” She smiles. “Much as I’d like to keep you here.” 

 

It takes some time, and a lot more sighing, and a little break for Jughead to cough and drink some water, but it ends with him calling his dad. 

 

Betty runs downstairs to give Jughead some privacy and to retrieve the laundry. The last thing she needs is her mother finding her boyfriend’s clothing in their dryer. 

 

When she gets back, Jughead motions for her to sit next to him on the bed. 

 

“My dad’s going to come and pick me up,” he says. “I told him about the pneumonia and the closet and… well. I’m going to try staying with him for a while.” 

 

Betty hugs him. “I’m proud of you, Jug.” She kisses his cheek, and Jughead squeezes her hand. 

 

“You’re too good for me, Cooper,” he says. 

  
“Not by half,” Betty says. “Just you wait, Jug. Someday I’ll get you in bed without you having to be on your deathbed.” 

 

Jughead looks her up and down, appraising. “Is that so?” 

 

“Watch me,” Betty says, and she means it. 

 

*****

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on tumblr at superstringtheory.tumblr.com! I'm always up for chatting about Bughead, Jughead Jones and his glorious love of burgers and eternal need to be loved, as well as Marvel. :)


End file.
